Fire Station 35

Fire Station 35, my neighbor at work for the past almost 32 years. They inspected us many times, but it was the one time we had a fire, that they really mattered. :-)

It was the mid 80's and I still worked in the Tape Library. I had a fairly new car at the time, so that tells me it was between 1985 and the end of 1988. I parked my car next to the utility building, on our lot. It was almost the end of the day, maybe 4:30PM or so, when someone came into the Master Control area and said that there was a fire in the utility building. I looked out the door and yes, I agreed with the person and I stupidly ran right for my car, to move it out of the way. I didn't stop to think that this was probably not the smartest thing one could do, but I got there safely and I immediately drove over to Fire Station 35. Their large doors were open, but they were hanging out (probably waiting for the remainder of their crew to get into their turn out gear). So I go up to one of them and say, "Are you coming?" The man answers, "KCET?" and I said yes. He and the ones who were standing out by the truck, hop on board and off they went.

I returned to the lot and parked out on the street, so I would not bother them and watched for a few moments, as they got the fire under control. Of course our power went out and we immediately were on Tech Power, which at that time only kept the MC Switcher and a few tape machines going. Operations and me, the Tape Librarian, went looking for screening cassettes of the Prime Time shows, in case we did not get the feeds of the evening programming. In a dark building, no less. It was loads of fun...not!

We survived with only minor problems, but the one thing that was a chilling reminder of the fact that I really should not have gotten that car...there was a 55 gallon drum of diesel fuel stored in the utility building, for the generator that we had fired up for our Tech Power. Yikes!

I like to think that all would have been well if I hadn't gone over to Fire Station 35, but I am glad I did.

Thanks so much for protecting us all these years. I am going to miss you all, when we leave.